NEW RIVAL CHANGES - not good IMO

Comments

I have to say I love these changes. So you don't like that worse players that don't play on expert can't compete with the ones that can play expert? That's like saying: Pff why can't bronze LoL players compete in the LCS? It's because they haven't trained or have the skill to get to that level. Bloodstone and Diamond should be reserved for the very best, not the ones that just grind normal all day and doesn't wanna try hard or expert.

What I'm trying to say: Git Gud

And if this was an individual leaderboard that would be fine. But it isn’t. It’s a leaderboard for social groupings that we were encouraged to form under the old rule set, we formed them with an eye to being ‘good enough is good enough’, and now that they’re changing the rules they’re disrupting the very social networks they encouraged people to establish.

It’s not saying ‘git gud’, it’s saying “git new friends because suddenly we want you to tell your old friends that were gud enough to be your friends for the past six seasons that they aren’t gud enough to be your friends anymore.”

I don't think we can judge just yet how this season is going to be to make it to bloodstone because we don't exactly know how the modified promoting zone are going to be, my crew usually makes it to bloodstone on week 7 so before that week, i will hold my opinion because maybe it won't be that different from past seasons, let's stay positive, no need to be discouraged just yet, it just started

I have to say I love these changes. So you don't like that worse players that don't play on expert can't compete with the ones that can play expert? That's like saying: Pff why can't bronze LoL players compete in the LCS? It's because they haven't trained or have the skill to get to that level. Bloodstone and Diamond should be reserved for the very best, not the ones that just grind normal all day and doesn't wanna try hard or expert.

What I'm trying to say: Git Gud

And if this was an individual leaderboard that would be fine. But it isn’t. It’s a leaderboard for social groupings that we were encouraged to form under the old rule set, we formed them with an eye to being ‘good enough is good enough’, and now that they’re changing the rules they’re disrupting the very social networks they encouraged people to establish.

It’s not saying ‘git gud’, it’s saying “git new friends because suddenly we want you to tell your old friends that were gud enough to be your friends for the past six seasons that they aren’t gud enough to be your friends anymore.”

If anything, it's saying "Please try and git gud because we will reward you more for an attempt than if you stay just kinda okayish."

I cannot even understand how wanting Rivals to be any other way is anything other than an attempt to totally undermine the competitive nature of it. In a fair competition, the best should come out on top and I mean no offense at all when I say that Expert players are better than Hard players, who are better than Medium players, who are better than Easy players.

I do have something of a solution that might appease both sides though - perhaps some tips and/or additional tutorials that make it easier for people to make the jump from one difficulty to the next? I know people who still don't realise that it's easier to play hard/expert by putting their index finger on red, middle finger on yellow, ring finger on blue and pinky on orange and move their finger(s) up to hit green (and any green-including chords) rather than putting them on green/red/yellow/blue and moving down for orange (+chords), for example.

Woah, do people actually play like that? That would mess me up so much, no way could I recondition my brain that index finger was red (and not the middle) and so on. Your pinky quickly adapts to reaching over to the orange and holds its own. If you had played some time on Medium before jumping up to Hard/Expert, I think repositioning your base would really throw you off but more power to you if you did it.

Woah, do people actually play like that? That would mess me up so much, no way could I recondition my brain that index finger was red (and not the middle) and so on. Your pinky quickly adapts to reaching over to the orange and holds its own. If you had played some time on Medium before jumping up to Hard/Expert, I think repositioning your base would really throw you off but more power to you if you did it.

Is this common?

If you watch people like JasonParadise, Acai etc. on YouTube, Twitch etc. (basically anyone who posts/streams GH/RB/Clone Hero videos), that's the technique they use.

I reprogrammed myself to do back in my GH3 days - by bending my thumb around and using that to hit the green. That is weird even for me! I still very occasionally bring the thumb in, but 99% of the time, I just move the index up to hit green, index and middle for GR chords and those plus ring for GRY.

This is from @HMXOwl on Reddit: "And for those interested in hard numbers, here's the straight data on how XP per song has changed. The 'Base' numbers listed here refer to a song that's exactly 3:45 in length. https://i.imgur.com/61dSjVv.png "

Also, we just tested to get the numbers for the play bonuses. The play bonus is the same on any difficulty. 1st play bonus is 30% of the base amount for expert 5 stars, 2nd play bonus is 10%, and 3rd play bonus is 5%.

The number of XP points for the the 1st play is the same as before, but the bonus is much smaller relative to the new base XP. The 2nd and 3rd play bonuses are half of what they use to be.

This is from @HMXOwl on Reddit: "And for those interested in hard numbers, here's the straight data on how XP per song has changed. The 'Base' numbers listed here refer to a song that's exactly 3:45 in length. https://i.imgur.com/61dSjVv.png "

Also, we just tested to get the numbers for the play bonuses. The play bonus is the same on any difficulty. 1st play bonus is 30% of the base amount for expert 5 stars, 2nd play bonus is 10%, and 3rd play bonus is 5%.

The number of XP points for the the 1st play is the same as before, but the bonus is much smaller relative to the new base XP. The 2nd and 3rd play bonuses are half of what they use to be.

@Vexus said " In a fair competition, the best should come out on top and I mean no offense at all when I say that Expert players are better than Hard players, who are better than Medium players, who are better than Easy players."

That sounds like a leaderboard That works great in individual competition. Perhaps there should be an individual element to rivals - a leaderboard for individual with most XP and most spotlight points for a season and give some special reward like a star next to their name in the game. Also have a permanent overall leaderboard on the website.

Sorry, but I am an inclusive social girl who won't kick friends off the crew. If rivals becomes that hardcore, the elites can have it.

Woah, do people actually play like that? That would mess me up so much, no way could I recondition my brain that index finger was red (and not the middle) and so on. Your pinky quickly adapts to reaching over to the orange and holds its own. If you had played some time on Medium before jumping up to Hard/Expert, I think repositioning your base would really throw you off but more power to you if you did it.

Is this common?

Dude, "Home Position 2" is the key to getting gud!

Some songs even require Home Position 3 to keep from fatiguing your pinky from excessive Yellow/Blue/Orange charting shenanigans.

It's one of the beautiful things about this game. Many of the song charts really capture the feel of actually playing the song on a real guitar without having to learn guitar if you shift your hand around. The ironic thing is you really don't notice unless you play real guitar.

I'm interested to see how my crew shakes out in the new paradigm. We were a "Bloodstone on the last or second to last week" type of crew, getting the "Top 5%" badge each season except season zero.

It'll be interesting to see if the changes prove that we really are a legit top level crew and allow us to easily accede to our beloved Bloodstone, or if the New World Order will expose us as frauds who were just sneaking in. I can't wait to find out!

I'm interested to see how my crew shakes out in the new paradigm. We were a "Bloodstone on the last or second to last week" type of crew, getting the "Top 5%" badge each season except season zero.

It'll be interesting to see if the changes prove that we really are a legit top level crew and allow us to easily accede to our beloved Bloodstone, or if the New World Order will expose us as frauds who were just sneaking in. I can't wait to find out!

Jealous. My crews has never made bloodstone but always end up in the top 5%. Super frustrating. Pretty sure bloodstone accounts for like the top 2% or less which is kind of ridiculous.

Ps side starts around 4000 crews most bronze weeks. Around 75-80 crews wind up in bs at the end of week 8. So yeah, pretty near 2% of the starting pool, never mind the crews that register their first play after bronze week.

Woah, do people actually play like that? That would mess me up so much, no way could I recondition my brain that index finger was red (and not the middle) and so on. Your pinky quickly adapts to reaching over to the orange and holds its own. If you had played some time on Medium before jumping up to Hard/Expert, I think repositioning your base would really throw you off but more power to you if you did it.

Is this common?

I consider index Red my base position but until RB4 I never got above medium guitar. Alternating between my ring and pinky is damn near impossible for me so I absolutely HAD TO move away from my index Green base position. I probably wouldn't be as close to the 900 skill trophy still playing the old way. It does take time to retrain your brain but once you do it's like riding a bike going back to index Green.

Bloodstone weeks are going to be insane, my crew is at 432000xp at the moment and we never made more than 300000xp on a week to make it to bloodstone, WE ARE IN THE FIRST WEEK of the season, it is going to be totally nuts... I'm expecting over 1 000 000 xp is going to be needed for bs this season

Bloodstone weeks are going to be insane, my crew is at 432000xp at the moment and we never made more than 300000xp on a week to make it to bloodstone, WE ARE IN THE FIRST WEEK of the season, it is going to be totally nuts... I'm expecting over 1 000 000 xp is going to be needed for bs this season

It is still essentially the same number of song plays. It does not matter how much XP is awarded per song. The mechanics work the same.

Bloodstone weeks are going to be insane, my crew is at 432000xp at the moment and we never made more than 300000xp on a week to make it to bloodstone, WE ARE IN THE FIRST WEEK of the season, it is going to be totally nuts... I'm expecting over 1 000 000 xp is going to be needed for bs this season

It is still essentially the same number of song plays. It does not matter how much XP is awarded per song. The mechanics work the same.

I know but some bands are going nuts this season, we are not able to maintain our past seasons ranking thus far

Another issue with Brutal being worth so much more than expert, just like "Wants to play Rivals Challenge songs" only being optional it promotes playing alone over playing online multiplayer.

So if it ends up being long term that Brutal is worth much more than expert, Brutal mode needs to be added to online multiplayer.

+1

...and while we’re at it, can we move “Play a Show” to online multiplayer, too?

+1

... and just for s&g's, can we up the level cap to say 150/200? With all these gigantic xp numbers we're getting now, I think it may be time to allow us who've been stuck at 100 for while to start working it again! (Also, make it so the instrument coin on our results screen, does a little flip every so often showing our level). Be nice to show it off to others than just our crewmates on the app!

Wait, WHAT! Stuck at level 100 for a while?!?! Man how much do you play??? I'm often the number 1 most xp (in my tier which is not always the top of the current week) but i haven't reach level 100 yet (almost though i'm lvl 99 and 80k away from it). I should hit it within the next challenge

One of the greatest aspects of the Rock Band franchise is the ability for people of varying skill levels to play together. A band can be made up of Experts and Beginners, and it's still fun.

Previously, when playing a challenge with the kids, they could feel like they were contributing, because even though they were playing on Medium or Hard, they'd get as many XP on a song as me. The new formula is going to reduce the value of their contribution.

I also feel like the new XP numbers I am racking up cheapen the totals that people have previously achieved. I've been playing like crazy and it has taken months and months to get to level 72. Suddenly it doesn't look so hard.